Maurice Ravel — Boléro

Maurice Ravel, born 7 March 1875 in Ciboure near the Basque coast, was a jeweller of orchestration — every phrase polished, every timbre placed with obsessive precision. In the 1920s and 30s he was regarded as France's greatest living composer.

Boléro (1928), commissioned by the dancer Ida Rubinstein, is a single sinuous melody repeated over an unbroken snare-drum ostinato, swelling from a whisper to an overwhelming blaze of full orchestra. Ravel himself called it an experiment and was startled — not entirely pleased — that it became his most famous work.

Where to look: repetition building to intensity. Shoot a receding rhythm of arches, columns, or streetlamps, or warm reds and coppers deepening toward a single crescendo of colour — a pattern that escalates rather than simply sits.